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Friday, 14 October 2011

Removing the offside tank was simple enough. However, the nearside tank is tricky as the locomotive is standing next to the wall. There's certainly not enough space to squeeze a forklift in the gap, so a home made section of track was used to roll Woolwich past the meddlesome internal wall (this method was at the time deemed preferential to demolishing the wall).

The last time we shifted the 8.5 ton* loco, it required the use of a JCB digger. This time around, we enlisted an ex-Royal Navy truck to do the towing. We're lucky that the floor of the engine room is perfectly level.

The time came to remove the offside tank. Most of the securing bolts had already been removed, so only a couple were left to undo before the lifting began.

The forklift truck was good at this as it had practised on the other tank - it lifted off quite smoothly. The ex-navy truck was once again summoned to push Woolwich back to bed.